Dungbombs ARE Big And Clever, Wankface
by quiffed
Summary: Sirius muses on his friendships... Remus... the 'sizes' of some of his fellow students... and Remus some more... Hogwarts Era.


Sirius gets bored sometimes when he's alone with Peter. It's not often that he's alone with Peter, and he guesses that's the reason why. Peter isn't stimulating. Peter is inherently normal, he's nondescript, unimaginative. He tries to keep up with the rest of them, really he does, but sometimes it's not enough. Peter rarely has really _good_ ideas. Peter's jokes are either excruciatingly unfunny, or so long and complex that you'd need a map to be able to follow them properly. Usually the other Marauders begin to laugh at him, not with him, and Peter always joins in delightedly, oblivious to the fact that he's the butt of the joke. Peter's not stupid though, and he's all too aware that he and Sirius don't have much in common. He usually suggests after two or three minutes of stilted conversation, "Shall we go and find Prongs?" This question generally re-animates Sirius, and he'll leap up, eager to go and find James.

James. Jamsie. Jamey-boy. James is Sirius's _best_ best friend. They're simply so _alike_. They've got the same sense of humour ('Dungbombs _are_ big and clever, wankface.'), they share the same dress sense ('If it's vaguely clean and not pastel pink, I'll wear it.') and they both like the same music ('Ears bleeding yet? Better turn it up louder, mate.') . Most importantly, and perhaps vitally, they support the same Quidditch team. They've even worked out a chant. It's full of swearwords and unsuitable phrases, and it even _rhymes_. McGonagall banned them from ever reciting it on school grounds, but she liked it really.

Of course Sirius knows he's not _exactly_ like James. He's better looking, for a start. Almost certainly more intelligent. And McGonagall is secretly in love with him. _Those_ are standards of excellence James can only dream of attaining. Sirius has never thought of James as _boring_ before. Predictable, perhaps. Reliable. Samey. Which is great, of course, because you'd never find a better mate anywhere.

And then there's Remus. _Remus_. Sirius has never been so fascinated by anyone before. Remus is as primitive as Peter when it comes to the Marauders' pranks, maybe even more so. He refuses to participate because, as he eloquently put it in the note he passed to them in Transfiguration:

_I decline not because I do not wish to join the hoi polloi in their revels, but because I have been burdened with the unsavoury role of Prefect, and I am regrettably forbidden to partake in the festivities._

Remus often talks like that when he's trying to confuse them so much that they'll give up and leave him alone. Sirius soon figured out that the above was Moony-speak for:

_Bugger off, you juvenile idiots, I'd much rather spend the afternoon reciting poetry at the top of my lungs whilst soaping myself down in the Prefects' bathroom._

Not that Sirius broke into the Prefects' bathroom with the sole purpose of finding _Remus_ – he'd been trying to enchant the tiles so that Snape slipped and cracked his skull open the next time he snuck in to wash his hair. There was one small snag in that plan; Snape obviously never washed his hair, as any of the lice doing the backstroke in the grease could have told him, and Remus had been the next one up for a soak in the tub. Thank Merlin for Invisibility Cloaks. Remus would've ripped him limb from limb if he'd found him spying.

Not that Sirius was spying in the first place. One couldn't help _looking_: teenage boy etiquette demanded that one kept one's eyes averted at all times in the Quidditch – anything lower than eye-level was considered 'poofy', but everyone snuck a peek occasionally, to quell the insecurity. If it was smaller than yours, well then, that was one for the old self-esteem, and if it was bigger, well then _that_ explained why Robinson always had that smug smile on his face, the git. Consolation prize for having a face like a mangy Kneazle, Sirius reckons.

But anyway, about Remus. Sirius's mind never wanders from Remus for long. It's always so difficult to know exactly what he's _thinking_. Sirius often catches Remus gazing at him, a wistful half-smile on his face, and he drives himself half-mad pondering just what's on the boy's mind.

"Knut for your thoughts," Sirius would comment hopefully, whenever he saw those hazel eyes staring at him. Remus would just grin and shake his head. "Sickle for your thoughts, then. _Galleon_ for your thoughts," Sirius would persist. But Remus wouldn't ever tell him. It was infuriating.

There are so many little subtleties with Remus. Sirius only has to look at James to know what he's thinking: if he's turned purple and is spluttering like a spluttering fool, Evans is probably somewhere in the vicinity, if he's fiddling with his glasses, there's a practical joke in the works. Remus is an enigma. Sirius struggles to understand why he bites his nails, why he squints at books even though he's got perfect eyesight and can see farther anyone else in the year, why he tugs at his earlobe when he's concentrating. Sirius doesn't know if he'll ever figure him out.

Not that Sirius thinks of Remus all the time, of course not. That would be fucking weird, wouldn't it? It's just sometimes, when he's laughing with James by the lake and he notices Remus sitting under a tree talking to someone else, when it's nearing full moon and Remus groans softly in the hushed dormitory, when he can't figure out the stupid Arithmancy equation and he's wondering what Remus is up to in History of Magic, and once, when he was kissing Ingrid and she tasted faintly of those dark chocolates Remus likes so much…

But that was only once. And he dumped Ingrid soon after that, anyway. Moved on. To Rosie Briggs. And then he'd left her, and gone out with Alice for a bit. Good old Alice.

It's rarely that Sirius gets bored, anyway. There are always dozens of ideas and thoughts and little men with megaphones running around in his head doing cartwheels and backflips and giving him new things to think about. James is the same. Teachers often move them apart, James to sit with Peter and Sirius to sit with Remus. James sobers up a bit when he's with Peter, though not by much, admittedly, and when Sirius is sitting next to Remus, his thoughts kind of… _slow down_, like his brain's been hit by an _Impedimenta_. They go all sluggish, and the little men just mooch around, hands in their pockets, like they can't be bothered shouting or cartwheeling anymore. It's as if, when Sirius is near Remus, he turns to mush.

But in a good way.


End file.
